Biff Pow

There's no point to KB-to-KD in Nova because it kills most of its targets. I do use the Overwhelming Force set in Explosive Blast because it turns it into a PBAoE power and I like to melee. But I leave the KB in Energy Torrent because sometimes you want enemies out of your face.

I've played it on Scrapper and Tanker and I prefer Tanker because you get the toughness with a good damage output.

I know a defense set makes sense, but I love the crazy power of an Energy/Energy Blaster. And you can still get some decent defense from the Fighting and Epic pools.

This Is The Way

There's definitely a big challenge gap between sets with some early control powers and sets that are just weak debuffs or extra damage. Even the torrent powers in some Blaster sets make a big difference. Anything that gives a break from incoming damage is helpful. It could help to give some pool powers a look- Wall of Force, Misdirection, Invoke Panic. Maybe we could make powers like these a little more useful, and maybe unlock earlier to help low level players? (Like maybe switch power pools to two tiers, but that's a whole other discussion.)

One thing I've always noticed on the forums, I imagine because it's mostly powergamers that post here, is the auction house is always thought of in terms of buying, not selling. Higher prices means a sellers market and for a lot of people that's good news. Rare salvage selling for one million (for example) would make it really easy to keep your character in fresh SOs and eventually some basic Invention Sets. The question is how many players want the maxed-out builds, and how many are content with pretty good builds? I really don't know the answer, I assume since this is an old game it's mostly just diehards that are still playing, so a good percent want the max builds. But overall I think the economy is in a decent balance so it's probably not a good idea to mess around with it.

Yes, give enemies an energy bar that lowers as they are attacked, and Controllers get a bonus at reducing this bar on mezzed opponents. The enemies are defeated when it hits zero. Make the energy bar green.

I like Spring Attack. It's not particularly useful because of its long recharge, but it's fun to leap into a crowd now and then. I don't know if Laser Eye Beams fits with your concept but Energy Mastery is a good epic pool choice. Focused Accuracy helps with +Perception and ToHit Debuff resistance, though Super Strength doesn't need that as much as other sets. And obviously some +Regen and +Recovery from Physical Perfection.

One nice thing about Kinetic Melee if you're looking for Defense bonuses- there's lots of places to slot the Winter IO sets.

Basically, yes. Fire/Cold isn't hard, pretty much every purple set gives 6% resists, some also give Psi/Toxic. Shield Wall and Unbreakable Guards for E/N, and the Tanker sets for everything.

You can get a lot of resist and defense bonuses from Invention Sets, and then with the Might of the Tanker proc get up near 90% resistance to everything. But honestly, once you're up to the 70s or so in resists (plus capped S/L), you're already taking so much less damage that 90% is overkill. Mids numbers can be misleading, or use really weird builds that aren't fun to play, I prefer to go by in game stats. Here's my Inv/SS in a fairly basic situation: two enemies in Invincibility range and one stack of Might of the Tanker.

60% is decent Accuracy. In situations where you're missing a lot, it's usually +ToHit that you want (or ToHit Debuff resistance), not more Accuracy.

Sonic Blast kind of does the opposite- put the minions and Lts to sleep with Siren Song while you deal with the boss. And it's auto-hit.

Invulnerability has four auto powers and just three toggles (which are pretty light on endurance.) It doesn't really need a recovery boost.

This is my final build, so it's very purpled-out. Blaster SonicEnergy.mbd